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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A baked lemon custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Beat 4 egg yolks until creamy.

  2. Add grated lemon rind and juice.

  3. Melt the butter and mix it into the beaten yolks, stirring over low heat until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

  5. Mix in 1 cup sugar and 1 whole egg.

Prepare the crust

  1. Line a pie tin with the pie crust.

  2. Brush the surface with beaten egg.

  3. Sprinkle with sifted bread or cracker crumbs.

  4. Pour the lemon mixture into the crust.

Bake and top

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Beat the whites of 4 eggs with 2 tablespoons powdered sugar and a little grated lemon rind until stiff.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie.

  4. Brown lightly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the lemon filling and whites whip into the meringue topping.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and stabilises the whipped egg white meringue.
Lemon
Provides the acidity and aroma that define the filling.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolk mixture over low heat until thickened. Egg yolks set at moderate temperatures; heating too fast or too hot can scramble them, leaving a grainy filling instead of a smooth, thick custard.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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